I don't know dude, if someone walked up to my car and started breaking the windows and pulling out their handgun, I think I'd get the hell away even if they could produce a badge. Screw the law, I'd rather stay alive and defend my case rather than end up a statistic shot down by an overzealous cop (let's face it - it does happen).

The odds of getting shot by a cop go up drastically if you try to run. If you didn't think they were cops it makes more sense, but if you think they are cops and try to run you are breaking the law. This isn't an, "I don't know...," situation. That's the law. The best you can hope for in that situation is that they understand why you did it and either don' charge you or drop the charges, which they did.

I don't know dude, if someone walked up to my car and started breaking the windows and pulling out their handgun, I think I'd get the hell away even if they could produce a badge. Screw the law, I'd rather stay alive and defend my case rather than end up a statistic shot down by an overzealous cop (let's face it - it does happen).

The odds of getting shot by a cop go up drastically if you try to run. If you didn't think they were cops it makes more sense, but if you think they are cops and try to run you are breaking the law. This isn't an, "I don't know...," situation. That's the law. The best you can hope for in that situation is that they understand why you did it and either don' charge you or drop the charges, which they did.

Of course. Here I mean that it is highly ambiguous whether they are cops or not. If they are and are clearly marked as such then, yes, fleeing is retarded because no law-abiding person runs away from someone he knows is a cop, I think that is quite obvious. But if you are not sure of their intentions and legimitately feel you are in danger, you have every right to subtract yourself from the situation, regardless of the law. Self-defense takes precedence over anything and can be argued in court once order has been restored (rather than staying put "hoping for the best" and getting damaged/killed in the process).

There is no time for rational thinking or "giving people a chance" in these situations, you have to act quickly and a basic risk analysis of the scenario as described clearly indicates fleeing was the optimal course of action leading to the highest chance of survival. It's really that simple. It's the cop's damn fault for inducing a fight-or-flight response from the car driver and they should not be surprised they almost got run over. This is exactly the same reason you do not scare a cat or a dog even for fun unless you want to get mauled. What else did you expect?

The slowsort algorithm is a perfect illustration of the multiply and surrender paradigm, which is perhaps the single most important paradigm in the development of reluctant algorithms. The basic multiply and surrender strategy consists in replacing the problem at hand by two or more subproblems, each slightly simpler than the original, and continue multiplying subproblems and subsubproblems recursively in this fashion as long as possible. At some point the subproblems will all become so simple that their solution can no longer be postponed, and we will have to surrender. Experience shows that, in most cases, by the time this point is reached the total work will be substantially higher than what could have been wasted by a more direct approach.

Or maybe it's a principle thing, I don't know.. just kind of weird how the two interacted. Feels kind of scripted and fake in fact

More like scripted, but real. I bet both of those guys knew how it was going to end.

It's a good example of why a lot of people assume the cop is in the wrong when stories like the girls w/water come around.

Quite a bit of racism in the mix too, which I point out in case foreigners/Idaho folks don't pick up on such things when they are put in stark relief under a spotlight for all of the world to see.

Honestly, I don't usually watch things like that 'iced tea' video, because I've seen it in real life too many times, a whiff of the vidcap smells me what's coming, and I'll spend half of the day in rage mode.

Just to put it out there again for those pondering the details of suspicious behavior -- these alcohol control people target and investigate stores, not people. Probably heard the store sold to minors and they were trying to catch them in the act. Wishful thinking maybe -- if the girls were underage w/ alcohol, the officers could make arrests, issue citations, go home.

As for the "iced tea" video, well, even if the so-called officer was being unreasonably obnoxious with his apparent need to perform an extensive molecular analysis of the liquid in question, I think the other guy was being rather dumb showing him the can's label multiple times, obviously that's not what the cop wanted. How hard was it to hand him the can, let him check and embarass himself? That said I've never lived in the USA so I don't know how this is handled over there, do people routinely steal soda cans by pretending to be policemen? Or maybe it's a principle thing, I don't know.. just kind of weird how the two interacted. Feels kind of scripted and fake in fact.

Would you really drink out of that can if someone took and started sniffing around it? Here's a counter to your question: Do police officers (where you live) routinely ask to sniff your canned ice tea? Do they also do this when you're standing in front of the store where you bought it from?** Also, even if he did have alcohol in his drink, that's, in and of itself, not illegal. Obviously the officer couldn't smell it on the guy's breath. It was just a bad arrest and that's putting it nicely.

**Actually, he bought the iced tea from another store and was waiting for some friends to purchase actual alcohol from the ABC liquor store.

Edited by Alpha_ProgDes, 02 July 2013 - 01:20 PM.

Beginner in Game Development? Read here.Super Mario Bros clone tutorial written in XNA 4.0 [MonoGame, ANX, and MonoXNA] by Scott Haley
If you have found any of the posts helpful, please show your appreciation by clicking the up arrow on those posts

Spoiler

How on earth can you go around telling lies, be shown that they are lies, then continue to ignore the evidence to the contrary. I'm not qualified to deal with this, sorry. - HodgmanNever crash to desktop. That's the equivalent of a Starbucks rep punching you in the face when you try to order a coffee with soymilk when they run out of soymilk. - KoobazaurFor programmers, R & D means "Research & Duplicate".Just remember... XML is like violence. If it doesn't work, you just aren't using enough of it... - MoeEvery time I go into my account settings I feel like I've never used the internet before. - booleanPerson X: Do you want to live forever?
Person Y: No, but I want to live a long life.
Person X: Only cowards live that long.
Person Y: And yet, we travel to seek the counsel of these "cowards".

So... I don't know where you read about the parental puchase thing, but the government of Virginia seems to disagree.

The NIH says so: ""making a delivery of alcoholic beverages by order of his parent". To me this reads like you're allowed to carry alcohol in Virginia if your parents told you to go and get some, no matter how old you are.

Possession, not purchase. Purchase is specifically prohibited, also in your NIH link. The parents would have to purchase it for them (or obtain it somehow), and then send them on their merry way. I assume it's for "take this wine to Grandma's"-esque situations. Since the agents were waiting around for whatever reason, it was pretty obvious to them parent/guardian wasn't there to give it to her. Since the water looked like alcohol to the agents and she looked like she was likely underage (and from the other article, might seem overly jumpy and alert), they wanted to ask her about it. That's completely within their purview. There is very little suspicion required to question somebody without detaining them.

they wouldn't be enforcing the law, which is the raison d'etre for law enforcement

If your law enforcement has "SS" tattooed on their arms in Arian runes, yes. Otherwise no. Most people, police included, forget what the police is about and what their duty is. Their duty is to serve and protect the citizens (US police even have this written on their badges). Yes, this includes making sure that people follow the law. After all, the law, too, is to serve the people.
However, their duty is not to harrass and oppress people, nor to suspect and "criminalize" people when according to the situation, it is a perfectly reasonable assumption that they're not doing anything wrong.

A) Godwin's Law
B) Law Enforcement
C) Walking up and asking a question isn't oppression or harassment, and their job is to investigate probable crimes (so they can stop them if they are) insofar as it doesn't violate your rights. More about that. Again, you have the right to not answer any questions and leave in a non-suspicious way (ie, not running and/or look like you're destroying contraband or grabbing a weapon, etc.).

The key issue in this encounter is that the girl responded in a suspicious way (though she did so for entirely understandable reasons), and the agents reacted to that, which only freaked her out more, and so on.

The thing I'm not sure about it is why she started her car, my car lets you turn on the AC/powered windows without actually starting the engine. She might have just been jumpy, though.